Well, duh. Who else could zip back and forth between two titles?

Shades of when Wally was in both the JLA and the Titans at the same time...

I was browsing over at the DC Comics website and found that the next Outsiders arc is called Five by Five -- interesting.

If Identity Crisis is in current continuity, how come Firestorm is white? Are there two of him now?

If Identity Crisis is in current continuity, how come Firestorm is white? Are there two of him now?

IC takes place just before the Firestorm change (although it may lead into what happened to Ronnie.)

Ple, did you hear this? (From TVShowsOnDVD.com)

**********

It was the dawn of the third age...
IGN Filmforce reports that J. Michael Straczynski admits he's working on a new Babylon 5 follow-up, and that strong DVD sales are the cause:

...with the big success of the first three Babylon 5 DVD sets, talk is turning back to renewing the popular sci-fi series.

J. Michael Straczynski, the series creator, posted on a Babylon 5 newsgroup this week that he was indeed working on a follow-up. Straczynski says that phase one of this as-yet-unnamed endeavor is a go, but that he can't say anything specific about it until January 15th. In the meantime, it sounds like JMS is busy writing material for the project.

The strong revenue generated by Babylon 5 sets is certainly making the folks at Warner Home Video happy. There was an initial hesitation to even release DVDs, due to lower-than-expected sales on VHS of the series - so low, in fact, that the VHS run was cancelled before it was completed. However, many fans have spoken up since then to say that the only reason they stopped buying VHS tapes was in anticpation of DVD compilations, which were becoming popular at the time for other shows. Sales have been so brisk on these sets that Jerry Doyle, who played "Garibaldi" on the original series, commented that "If they want to do 20 years of Babylon 5, they recoup their entire production cost just one box set run of DVDs." That's certain to be an exaggeration, but certainly the idea is there that the DVD income helps immensely.

NOTE: Readers of the above article (and the IGN FilmForce article about J. Michael Straczynski's new Babylon 5 universe project) are quick to point out to me - and rightly so - that nowhere does JMS himself say that the new proposition is a TV Series. He has left the door open for the project he's working on to be a new telefilm or mini-series, a feature theatrical film, a videogame using filmed sequences, etc. One reader, Joseph DeMartino, wrote to point out that in a newsgroup post back on September 27th, JMS indicated he had 1 or 2 possible B5-related projects on the horizon, that "they're not print projects", but also that "neither of them are series". This new activity is almost certainly one of those projects he was hinting at back in the fall. So, with this information in hand, we wanted to be sure that our readers knew that this upcoming venture wouldn't be an ongoing show, but instead is a 1-time event. Nevertheless, whatever the mystery undertaking turns out to be, it's obvious that the reason JMS continues to play in the Babylon 5 universe is because of strong fan support, and that the great DVD sales is a major representation of that.

Woo!

Go go, gadget JMS!

amych, whenever you see this, I'm assuming the crack you have for me is downloadable, but I can't remember the address. (I do, however, remember the user ID and password.)

Please to assist?

insent, teppy

More classic X-Men reading. Had to read a summary of some early X-Factor issues to figure out how Jean came back to life. Um, okay. Getting a little tired of the "It wasn't me that died, it was a shapeshifter/alien entity/robot" trope. Also feel like it sort of cheapens some of the Pheonix storyline. Also also, if Pheonix wasn't part of Jean, but an alien entity, why is her daughter manifesting the same powers?

Does the "it wasn't actually Jean" get changed again down the road? Because I know the movies, UXM, and a glimpse of the future we got in X-Men: Evolution all have Jean is the Pheonix.

I understand the Cyke-hate now, though it looks like their marriage was already on the rocks long before Jean's ressurection. Still doesn't make him a great guy, but he didn't just walk out on his marriage the instant Jean showed up either.

An odd little mythology-related question, I guess. In a book I just read, Rachel Summers apparently becomes subservient to the villain Spiral after "dancing the spiral" in her realm. In the Werewolf RPG, evil werewolves cement their allegience to the forces of corruption by "dancing the black spiral". Is this just coincidence or is there some mythological precedent that links dancing and spirals to corruption?

Getting a little tired of the "It wasn't me that died, it was a shapeshifter/alien entity/robot" trope.

I think it's about the worst narrative cheat there is.